BSNL, MTNL broadband service from Jan 14

Telecom public sector undertakings, BSNL and MTNL will start their broadband services across the country from Thursday, providing high-speed connectivity at tariffs ranging from Rs 500 to Rs 43,000.

The services will be inaugurated by Union Communications and IT Minister Dayanidhi Maran at Chennai, an official statement said.

While BSNL would provide broadband services starting at 256 kbps in 198 cities spread across 24 telecom circles progressively by the end of March 2005, in Delhi and Mumbai, the services would be provided by MTNL.

BSNL under its brand name 'Data One' will provide eight tariff plans, 4 each under 'Home Plan' and 'Business Plan'. The minimum monthly charges under the 'Home Plan' range from Rs 500 to Rs 3,300 and Rs 1,200 to Rs 9,000 under 'Business Plan', depending on the bandwidth.

MTNL will offer the services under 'Tri Band' in eight tariff plans, monthly charges for which ranged from Rs 749 to Rs 42,999 with bandwidth spanning from 256 kbps to 2 Mbps with unlimited hour-free monthly usages.

BSNL and MTNL have decided to provide 1.5 million connections by 2005 end, primarily based on ADSL technology leveraging the existing copper network.

Private sector telecom operators are expected to provide the rest using various technology options. BSNL and MTNL have planned to invest more than Rs 350 crore (Rs 3.5 billion) for achieving their targets for the year 2005.

The Broadband Policy 2004 envisages three million, nine million and 20 million broadband subscribers by the end of years 2005, 2007 and 2010 respectively.

The broadband service will provide high speed Internet connectivity for various applications like web-browsing, e-Commerce etc.

In addition, the customer will be able to enjoy multi-cast video services, video on demand, bandwidth on demand and other value-added services. The network for

broadband service has been designed to permit triple play services i.e. video, voice and data to the customers.

Broadband service would give a fillip to the growth of GDP and enhance the quality of life through societal applications, including tele-education, tele-medicine, e-governance, entertainment as well as employment generation.